Why is Homeostasis important?

Homeostasis is the phenomenon which is carried out in the human body to maintain the constant internal environment. Homeostasis is an automatic process which will take care of the temperature and water levels in the body and regulate them. If the person does heavy exercise or live in very hot or very cold environment, it will affect the homeostasis. The above mentioned factors will influence the temperature, oxygen levels in the blood, salts and hydration in the body. Some of the intense activities that can influence the homeostasis are scuba diving and mountain climbing. The temperature controlling device in an incubator acts as an example for body control mechanisms.

The body system will have certain receptors that can detect the stimuli and the center for processing identifies it. Later, it receives and processes the information and the response is given out automatically by the effectors. The improper coordination between the effectors and receptors might cause imbalance in the steady state of the system.

Homeostasis is important as many processes going on in our body are based on this phenomenon. The commonly occurring processes every day in our body are diffusion, osmosis, active transport, and so on. Diffusion means movement of solute molecules from a region of its high concentration to the region of its low concentration. Osmosis is movement of water from a dilute solution to a concentrated solution through a semi-permeable membrane.

The gases like oxygen and carbon-di-oxide get exchanged between the outside and the internal environments by diffusion. Movement of dissolved food molecules is also based on diffusion. Some substances like glucose move across the plasma membrane with the help of energy. Hence, this transfer is called as active transport. Similarly, excess intake of water into the biological cell by osmosis will tend to burst the cell while excess removal of water from the cell will not allow it to function properly. This is the reason for the homeostasis to be compulsorily followed in an organism as it helps in disciplined functioning of the body system.